Ebola Patient 'Should Not Have Traveled by Plane,' CDC Says

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The second health care worker to test positive for Ebola should
not have traveled on a plane from Ohio to Texas the day before
she showed symptoms of the disease, the head of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention said today.

The health care worker "should not have been allowed to travel by
plane or any public transport," because she was known to be in an
"exposed group" of people who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the
first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United
States, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said today (Oct.
15) at a news conference.

Health officials will now ensure that all health care workers who
had contact with Duncan during his care will not travel by public
transportation, Frieden said. [ Could
Ebola Really Be the 'Next AIDS'? ]

The woman in the case traveled from Cleveland to Dallas/Fort
Worth on Oct. 13 on Frontier Airlines flight 1143, CDC officials
said today. On Oct. 14, she developed a low-grade fever, and a
preliminary test of the patient was positive for Ebola. She is
being treated in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital
in Dallas.

Frieden said the risk that anyone on the flight was exposed to
Ebola was "extremely low," because the patient was not showing
symptoms of Ebola at the time she flew.
The virus is spread through direct contact with bodily
fluids, such as blood or vomit, of an infected individual.

On Sunday, the first nurse at the Dallas hospital, Nina Pham,
tested positive for Ebola. Pham is now being treated at that
hospital and her condition improved today, Frieden said. The
second health care worker is ill, but her condition is stable,
and she will be transferred to Emory University Hospital in
Atlanta, a facility that previously cared for
two Americans with Ebola, Frieden said.

Both heath care workers had extensive contact with Duncan at the
hospital, before he was diagnosed with Ebola. In the first few
days of Duncan's hospital stay, there was "variability" in the
use of personal protective equipment, Frieden said. Some workers
were putting on three or four layers of protection in the belief
that this would be more protective, Frieden said. But this
actually makes it harder to take off equipment properly, and the
risk of contamination increases, he said.

The second health care worker flew from Dallas to Cleveland on
Oct. 10, before the first case of Ebola in a health care worker
was known, and before health officials started to formally
monitor workers who had contact with Duncan.